DVD Videos

“Waller was capable of turning in a first rate performance no matter what the idiom or instrumentation…. he was also a sublime piano player in the Harlem Stride tradition” MusicWeb International

“John La Bouchardière who has taken these generalised, non-narrative musical expressions of love and tried to match them to a plot of his own devising. The whole thing is set mostly in a restaurant with various couples arguing, having affairs, and making up. The glorious music is sung with conviction, though I Fagiolini do have one or two tuning problems.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 ****

“The first thing to say about this brilliant film is that it is extremely well sung. The second thing is that you need to be in pretty good emotional shape in order to enjoy, or perhaps I should say survive, the experience of watching it. What John Le Bouchardière has done is to use Monteverdi's Fourth Book of Madrigals as the vehicle for tracing the break-up in the relationships of six couples.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2008

“Music-theatre hit of the decade … bleak but brilliant” The Times

“…this 1997 film goes a long way to conveying the richness of Messiaen's creativity and the paradox of being simultaneously central to 20th-century musical thought and atypical of it. Messiaen's unassuming, quietly authoritative manner is engaging, and the numerous moments where his enthusiasm is given full rein are compelling.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2008 *****

“Davis developed one of the most unmistakable tenor sax sounds in post war jazz. With a full bodied yet reedy tone that was equally at home in rhythm & blues settings as more modern contexts, his playing always had a direct, singing quality that was a huge influence on the next generation of sax men.” Allaboutjazz.com

“Wild is a major pianist whose modesty has partly concealed what these two DVDs reveal: he is a staggering Liszt interpreter, and here we have many hours of his playing and talking. Unfortunately the discs are extraordinarily confusingly laid out.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 ***

“Earl Wild (born 1915) is the last great representative of those pianists directly influenced by the playing of Rachmaninov and Hoffman: he has an all-encompassing repertoire; he composes; he transcribes; he has one of the finest mechanisms in history; he produces some of the most beautiful sounds you will ever hear from the piano (as he says himself, he was brought up to play as though every member of the audience were blind).
Among history's very greatest Liszt pianists, he is heard here in no fewer than three fulllength Liszt recitals. They were recorded before an audience over three evenings in July 1986 at Wynyard, the ancestral home of the Ninth Marquess of Londonderry, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Liszt.
'Liszt the Poet' includes the Ballade No 2, a wonderfully proportioned Dante Sonata, Funérailles and Mephisto Waltz No 1 with Wild's own and (in my opinion) much improved ending; 'Liszt the Transcriber' has 'hyphenated' Bach, Verdi, Schumann, Chopin, Paganini (stunning) and the Beethoven-Liszt Symphony No 1; 'Liszt the Virtuoso' is dominated by the B minor Sonata. Though not professionally filmed, the sound recording is quite acceptable while the picture quality is second generation video. There is also an enjoyable, homespun documentary of Wild's visit to Wynyard, the tour of the jaw-dropping estate and its immense house (boasting its own organ and played briefly by the pianist) conducted by the piano-loving Marquess himself.
On the second DVD is a 1974 BBC recital/ interview with the much-missed Robin Ray who elicits the memorable quote that 'the difference between playing a piece like the d'Albert Scherzo and, say, Beethoven Op 111 is that in the d'Albert you are a decorator; in the Beethoven you are an architect. A pianist should be able to be both.' There's an interview on the occasion of Wild's 90th birthday concert at the Concertgebouw and an additional 124 minutes of audio features: Wild lecturing (with some wickedly funny anecdotes) in 2003, interviewed by John Amis for the BBC in 1986 and Sharon Eisenhour for Philadelphia's WUHY station in 1982. What a cornucopia!” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…Boulanger was Bruno Monsaingeon's first documentary. It captures Boulanger as she approached ninety, a living legend, and showing few signs of age. Although filled-in a little by the booklet, the lack not just of biography, but also context is frustrating, but that does not prevent this being a thoroughly absorbing film.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 ****

“Nadia Boulanger has to be counted among the most influential teachers of the 20th century” Andrew McGregor” CD Review